Silent Partner (59 page)

I said, "The things that Cross described—the long hair and nails, the altar, defecating openly.

They were true, then. Symptoms."

"The book was a fraud," he said. "Fictional trash."

We drove on.

I said, "Convenient of Belding to die when he did. It spared him—and you—confronting Sharon and Sherry."

"Ever so rarely Nature acts in benevolent ways." "If She hadn't, I'm sure you would have figured something out. Now he can remain a benevolent figure for her.

She'll never know he wanted to kill her."

"Do you think that knowledge would be good for her— therapeutic?"

I didn't answer.

"My role in life," he said, "is to solve problems, not create them. In that sense, I'm a healer. Just like yourself."

The analogy offended me less than I'd have imagined. I said, "Taking care of others really has been your thing, hasn't it? Belding—everything from his sex life to his public image, and when
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that got hard to handle, when he started going for the night life, you were there to assume executive responsibility. Your sister, Sherry, Sharon, Willow Glen, the corporation-doesn't it weigh on you once in a while?"

I thought I saw him smile in the darkness, was certain he touched his throat and grimaced, as if it were too hard to talk.

Several miles later he said, "Have you reached a

decision, Doctor?"

"About what?"

"About probing further."

"My questions have been answered, if that's what you mean."

"What I mean is, will you continue to stir things up and ruin what's left of a very ill young woman's life?"

"Not much of a life," I said.

"Better than any alternative. She'll be well taken care of," he said. "Protected. And the world will be protected from her."

"What about after you're gone?"

"There are men," he said. "Competent men. A line of command. Everything's been worked out."

"Line of command," I said. "Belding was a cowboy, never had one. But once he was dead, it was a different story. With no one to chum out patents, you had to hire creativity, reorganize the corporate structure. That made Magna more vulnerable to outside attack—you had to solidify your power base. Having all three of Belding's daughters under your thumb was one big step in that

direction. How'd you get Sherry to back off from her legal threats?"

"Quite simple," he said. "I took her on a tour of corporate headquarters—our research and development center, the highest of high-technology enterprises. Told her I'd be happy to step down and have her run everything—she could be the new chairperson of Magna, bear the responsibility for fifty-two thousand employees, thousands of projects. The very thought terrified her—she wasn't an intellectual girl, couldn't balance a checkbook. She ran out of the building. I caught up with her and suggested an alternative."

"Money."

"More than she'd be able to spend in several lifetimes."

"Now she's gone," I said. "No more need to make payments."

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"Doctor, you have an extremely naive view of life. Money is the means, not the end. And the corporation would have survived—will survive, with or without me, or anyone else. When things attain a certain size, they become permantent. One can dredge a lake, not an ocean."

"What is the end?"

"Rhythm. Balance. Keeping everything going—a certain ecology, if you will."

A few minutes later: "You still haven't answered my question, Doctor."

"I won't stir anything up. What would be the point?"

"Good. What about your detective friend?"

"He's a realist."

"Good for him."

"Are you going to kill me anyway? Have Royal Hummel do his thing?"

He laughed. "Of course not. How amusing that you still see me as Attila the Hun. No, Doctor, you're in no danger. What would be the point?"

"For one, I know your family secrets."

"Seaman Cross redux? Another book?"

More laughter. It turned into coughing. Several miles later the range came into view, perfect and unreal as a movie set.

He said, "Speaking of Royal Hummel, there's something I want you to know. He'll no longer be functioning in a security capacity. Your comments on Linda's death gave me quite a bit of pause—amazing what a fresh perspective will do. Royal and Victor were professionals.

Accidents needn't happen with professionals. At best, they were sloppy. At worst... You brought me insight late in life, Doctor. For that I owe you a large debt."

"I was theorizing, Vidal. I don't want anyone's blood on my conscience, not even Hummel's."

"Oh, for God's sake, will you please stop being melodramatic, young man! No one's blood is at stake. Royal simply has a new job. Cleaning our chicken coops. Several tons of guano need to be shoveled each day. He's getting on in years, his blood pressure's too high, but he'll manage."

"What if he refuses?"

"Oh, he won't."

He aimed the vehicle at the empty corral.

"You gave the silent-partner photo to Kruse," I said. "The girls were photographed over there."

"Fascinating the things one dredges up in old attics."

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"Why?" I said. "Why'd you let Kruse go on for so long?"

"At one point, until recently, I believed he was helping Sharon—helping both of them. He was a charismatic man, very articulate."

"But he was bleeding your sister before he met Sharon. Twenty years of blackmail—of mind games."

He put the buggy in idle and looked at me. All the charm had dropped away, and I saw the same cold rawness in his eyes that I'd just witnessed in Sharon's. Genes... The collective unconsciousness...

"Be that as it may, Doctor. Be that as it may."

He drove quickly, stopped the buggy and parked.

We got out and walked toward the patio. Two men in dark clothing and ski masks stood waiting. One held a dark piece of elastic.

"Please don't be frightened," said Vidal. "That will come off as soon as it's safe for both of us. You'll be delivered safe and sound. Try to enjoy the ride."

"Why don't I feel reassured?"

More laughter, dry and forced. "Doctor, it's been stimulating. Who knows, we may meet again one day— another party."

"I don't think so. I hate parties."

"To tell the truth," he said, "I've tired of them myself." He turned serious. "But given even a slim chance that we do come face to face, I'd appreciate it if you don't acknowledge me. Invoke professional confidentiality and pretend we've never met."

"No problem there."

"Thank you, Doctor. You've comported yourself as a gentleman. Is there anything else?"

"Lourdes Escobar, the maid. A true innocent victim."

"Compensation's been made in that regard."

"Dammit, Vidal, money can't fix everything!"

"It can't fix anything," he said. "If it makes you feel any better, during the time she lived in the States, half of her family was wiped out by the guerrillas. Same death, no compensation. Those who survived were tortured, their homes burned to the ground. They've been granted immigration papers, brought over here, set up with businesses, given land. Compared to life itself, admittedly feeble, but the best I can offer. Any additional suggestions?"

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"Justice would be nice."

"Any suggestions about improving the justice that's been meted out?"

I had nothing to say.

"Well, then," he said, "is there anything I can do for you?"

"As a matter of fact, there is a small favor. An arrangement."

When I told him what it was, and exactly how I wanted it done, he laughed so hard it plunged him into a coughing attack that bent him double. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth, spat, laughed some more. When he pulled the handerchief away, the silk was stained with something dark.

He tried to talk. Nothing came out. The men in black looked at each other.

He finally found his voice again. "Excellent, Doctor," he said. "Great minds moving in the same direction. Now, let's attend to that hand."

I WAS dropped off on the University campus. Pulling the blindfold off, I made my way home on foot. Once inside my house I found I couldn't tolerate being there, threw some things into a bag, and called the exchange to say I'd be going away for a couple of days, to hold my calls.

"Any forwarding number, Doctor?"

No active patients or pending emergencies. I said, "No, I'll check in."

"A real vacation, huh?"

"Something like that. Goodnight."

"Don't you want to pick up the messages that are already on your board?"

"Not really."

"Oka-ay, but there's this one guy who's been driving me crazy. Called three times and got rude when I wouldn't give him your home number."

"What's his name?"

"Sanford Moretti. Sounds like a lawyer—says he wants you to work on a case for him or something like that. Kept

trying to tell me you'd really want to hear from him."

My reply made her laugh. "Doctor Delaware! I didn't know you used that kind of language."

I got in the car and drove away, found myself heading west, and ended up on Ocean Avenue, off
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Pico. Not far from the Santa Monica Pier, which had closed up for the night and darkened to a knurled clump of rooftops over a thatch of bowed pilings. Not far from the (vulgar) Pacific, but no OC VU on this block. The sea breeze had taken leave; the ocean smelled like garbage. The street hosted beer-and-shot bars with Polynesian names and "day-week-month" motels given a wide berth by the auto club.

I checked into a place called Blue Dreams—twelve brown, salt-smudged doors arranged around a parking lot badly in need of resurfacing, the neon tubes in the VACANCY sign cracked and drained of gas. A pasty-faced biker-hopeful with a dangling crucifix earring manned the front desk—doing me the favor of taking my money while making love to a slab of fried catfish and staring at a California Raisins commercial. Candy and condom machines stood side by side in the shoulder-cramping lobby, along with a pocket-comb dispenser, and the California Penal Code's reflections on theft and defrauding an in-keeper.

I took a room on the south side, paying for a week in advance. Nine by nine, insecticide stink—no gnats here—a single narrow, filmed window exposing a slice of brick wall turned mauve by reflected streetlight, mismatched wood-grain furniture, skinny bed under a spread laundered to dishwater-colored fuzz, pay-TV bolted to the floor. A quarter in the pay slot yielded an hour of fizzy sound and jaundiced skin tones. There were three quarters in my pocket.

I tossed two out the window.

I lay on the bed, let the TV run down, and listened to noise. Bass thumps from the jukebox of the bar next door, so loud it seemed as if someone was being hurled against the wall in two-four time; angry laughter and truncated street-talk in English, Spanish, and a thousand undecipherable tongues, canned laughter from the TV in the

adjacent room, toilet flushes, faucet hisses, movement cracks, door slams, car horns, a scatter of sharp reports that could have been gunshots or backfires or the sound of two hands applauding.

And backing it all, the Doppler drone of the freeway.

An Overland symphony. Within moments I was robbed of twelve years.

The room was a sweatbox. I stayed inside for three days, subsisting on pizza and cola from a place that promised to deliver hot and cold and lied about both. For the most part I did what I'd been avoiding for so long. Had pushed away by chasing the inadequacies of others, throwing down cloaks over mudholes. Introspection. Such a prissy word for scooper-dips deep into the wellspring of the soul. The scooper honed sharp and jagged.

For three days I went through all of it: rage, tears, tension so visceral my teeth chattered and my muscles threatened to go into tetany. A loneliness that I would have gladly anesthetized with pain.

By the fourth day I felt sapped and placid, was proud I didn't mistake that for cure. That afternoon, I left the motel to keep my appointment: a sprint down the block to the sidewalk paper rack. The remaining quarter down the hatch and the evening edition was mine, gripped tightly under my arm, like pornography.

Bottom left of page one, complete with picture.

L.A.P.D. CAPTAIN CHARGED WITH SEXUAL MISCONDUCT RESIGNS

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Maura Bannon Staff Writer

A Los Angeles police captain, accused of having sexual relations with several underage female Police Scouts while on duty, resigned today after a police disciplinary board recommended dismassal.

The three-member Board of Rights panel ordered

Cyril Leon Trapp, 45, terminated immediately from

duty and recommended retroactive loss of all

L.A.P.D. pensions, benefits and privileges. In accordance with what both Trapp's attorney and a police spokesman described as a negotiated settlement, Trapp agreed to register as a sex offender, forfeit appeal of the board's decision, sign an affidavit agreeing never again to work in law enforcement, and pay "substantial financial restitution, including full fees for medical and psychiatric treatment" to his victims, suspected of numbering over a dozen. In exchange, no criminal charges are being filed, an alternative which theoretically could have included indictments for statutory rape, narcotics abuse, sexual abuse of a minor and multiple misdemeanors.

The offenses, to which Trapp pleaded no contest, took place over a five-year period during which he served as a sergeant in the department's Hollywood Division, and may have continued while he was a lieutenant at the Ramparts Division and at the West Los Angeles Division, where he was promoted to captain, last year, following the sudden heart attack death of the previous captain, Robert L. Rogers.

While at Hollywood, Trapp's name also surfaced in connection with a 1984 burglary scandal in which police officers broke rear windows of stores and warehouses on their patrols, tripping burglar alarms, then notified the police dispatcher that they were handling the call. The officers proceeded to loot the premises, using police cruisers to cart away stolen goods, then filed false burglary reports. Though half a dozen officers were considered suspects in that case, only two were subsequently indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to the Men's Colony at Chino. No charges were filed against Trapp, who was characterized by prosecutors, at that time, as a